Preliminary observations of the impact of the BLOB on the summer distribution of
marine fish in the Gulf of Alaska
Anne B. Hollowed, Chris Wilson and Wayne Palsson
Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, Seattle, WA, USA. E-mail: Anne.Hollowed@noaa.gov
In the fall of 2014, researchers projected a continuation of anomalously warm ocean
conditions in the northeast Pacific Ocean using a new seasonal forecasting capability.
Based on the results of these forecasts, the North Pacific Research Board funded a
coordinated research project to examine the impacts of the unusual warming event in the
northeast Pacific. This project will evaluate a unique dataset of acoustic and bottom
trawl survey data that spans from the southern California Bight to the western Gulf of
Alaska. An interdisciplinary multi-national research team has been assembled to conduct
this research. The NPRB provided funds to supplement existing surveys with additional
oceanographic measurements to enhance our ability to describe the mechanisms
underlying observed shifts in spatial distributions. This paper will present the initial
observations from the 2015 acoustic and bottom trawl surveys in the Gulf of Alaska.
These results will be compared to previous years when NMFS conducted comprehensive
surveys simultaneously in both the GOA and CCS (2003, 2005, 2011 and 2013).